powers of growth, and a single plant may mount up several trees in
succession, and thus reach the enormous length they are said sometimes
to attain. They much improve the appearance of a forest as seen from the
coast; for they vary the otherwise monotonous tree-tops with feathery
crowns of leaves rising clear above them, and each terminated by an
erect leafy spike like a lightning-conductor.
The other most interesting object in the forest was a beautiful palm,
whose perfectly smooth and cylindrical stem rises erect to more than a
hundred feet high, with a thickness of only eight or ten inches; while
the fan-shaped leaves which compose its crown, are almost complete
circles of six or eight feet diameter, borne aloft on long and slender
petioles, and beautifully toothed round the edge by the extremities
of the leaflets, which are separated only for a few inches from the
circumference. It is probably the Livistona rotundifolia of botanists,
and is the most complete and beautiful fan-leaf I have ever seen,
serving admirably for folding into water-buckets and impromptu baskets,
as well as for thatching and other purposes.
A few days afterwards I returned to Menado on horse-back, sending my
baggage around by sea; and had just time to pack up all my collections
to go by the next mail steamer to Amboyna. I will now devote a few pages
to an account of the chief peculiarities of the Zoology of Celebes, and
its relation to that of the surrounding countries.
CHAPTER XVIII. NATURAL HISTORY OF CELEBES.
THE position of Celebes is the most central in the Archipelago.
Immediately to the north are the Philippine islands; on the west is
Borneo; on the east are the Molucca islands; and on the south is the
Timor group--and it is on all sides so connected with these islands by
its own satellites, by small islets, and by coral reefs, that neither by
inspection on the map nor by actual observation around its coast, is it
possible to determine accurately which should be grouped with it, and
which with the surrounding districts. Such being the case, we should
naturally expect to find that the productions of this central island
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